Hacktivist software designed to put a strain on struggling Obamacare website.

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Researchers have uncovered software available on the Internet designed to overload the struggling Healthcare.gov website with more traffic than it can handle.

"ObamaCare is an affront to the Constitutional rights of the people," a screenshot from the tool, which was acquired by researchers at Arbor Networks, declares. "We HAVE the right to CIVIL disobedience!"

In a blog post published Thursday, Arbor researcher Marc Eisenbarth said there's no evidence Healthcare.gov has been subjected to any significant denial-of-service attacks since going live last month. He also said the limited request rate, the lack of significant distribution, and other features of the tool's underlying code made it unlikely that it could play a significant role in taking down the site. The tool is designed to put a strain on the site by repeatedly alternating requests to the https://www.healthcare.gov and https:www.healthcare.gov/contact-us addresses. If enough requests are made over a short period of time, it can overload some of the "layer 7" applications that the site relies on to make timely responses.

The screenshot below shows some of the inner workings of the unnamed tool.

The tool fits a pattern seen in the previous years of hacktivist software available for download that's customized to take on a specific cause or support a particular ideology.

"ASERT has seen site specific denial of service tools in the past related to topics of social or political interest," Eisenbarth wrote, referring to the Arbor Security Engineering and Response Team. "This application continues a trend ASERT is seeing with denial of service attacks being used as a means of retaliation against a policy, legal rulings or government actions."

The full text of the screenshot reads:

Destroy Obama Care.

This program continually displays alternate page of the ObamaCare website. It has no virus, trojans, worms, or cookies.

The purpose is to overload the ObamaCare website, to deny service to users and perhaps overload and crash the system.

You can open as many copies of the program as you want. Each copy opens multiple links to the site.

ObamaCare is an affront to the Constitutional rights of the people. We HAVE the right to CIVIL disobedience!

Of course, there's no way of knowing who wrote and posted the tool, which has been mentioned on social media sites. It's certainly possible that it's the work of critics of President Obama's healthcare legislation. But until we learn more, there's no way to rule out the possibility that it was developed by an Obamacare supporter with the hope of discrediting critics.

Promoted Comments

If this is indeed on the level and was developed by anti-ACA folks, then I feel sorry for them, for they clearly missed or misunderstood the history lesson on civil disobedience, which is the refusal to obey certain laws, regulations, or government orders. If these opponents want to engage in civil disobediance against Obamacare, then don't sign up for health insurance and refuse to pay the penalty. But trying to take down the site to prevent others from willingly engaging in it is not the answer. In other words, you boycott the bus service that forces you to sit in the back -- you don't slash the tires and piss in the engine so that others can't ride it too.

If this is indeed on the level and was developed by anti-ACA folks, then I feel sorry for them, for they clearly missed or misunderstood the history lesson on civil disobedience, which is the refusal to obey certain laws, regulations, or government orders. If these opponents want to engage in civil disobediance against Obamacare, then don't sign up for health insurance and refuse to pay the penalty. But trying to take down the site to prevent others from willingly engaging in it is not the answer. In other words, you boycott the bus service that forces you to sit in the back -- you don't slash the tires and piss in the engine so that others can't ride it too.

I respectfully disagree. Protest is not only about informing the oppressor but informing the oppressor's consumers. Civil disobedience also includes sit ins (workplaces and diners) e.g. Informing the patrons of a diner of the inequality transgressions.

If you don't disrupt the healthcare transactions now then their is a lost opportunity to inform the public that the mandate is forcing people to purchase a service that is their right to go with out.

For the record I'm in favor of single payer healthcare but that does not mean that we should not address the protestors legitimate concerns about the mandate.

I think Henry David Thoreau would disagree with you. There's protesting and there's civil disobedience. I wouldn't term a hacktivist group hitting a loathsome organization like RIAA or MPAA with a DDoS attack as an act of civil disobedience, but I think it could be called a protest. This may seem like arguing pointless semantics, but it's not -- civil disobedience, according to Thoreau's reading, is different kind of protest, i.e. refusing to pay taxes to a government that supports slavery rather than attacking/protesting the people who own the slaves.

If this is indeed on the level and was developed by anti-ACA folks, then I feel sorry for them, for they clearly missed or misunderstood the history lesson on civil disobedience, which is the refusal to obey certain laws, regulations, or government orders. If these opponents want to engage in civil disobediance against Obamacare, then don't sign up for health insurance and refuse to pay the penalty. But trying to take down the site to prevent others from willingly engaging in it is not the answer. In other words, you boycott the bus service that forces you to sit in the back -- you don't slash the tires and piss in the engine so that others can't ride it too.

I respectfully disagree. Protest is not only about informing the oppressor but informing the oppressor's consumers. Civil disobedience also includes sit ins (workplaces and diners) e.g. Informing the patrons of a diner of the inequality transgressions.

If you don't disrupt the healthcare transactions now then their is a lost opportunity to inform the public that the mandate is forcing people to purchase a service that is their right to go with out.

For the record I'm in favor of single payer healthcare but that does not mean that we should not address the protestors legitimate concerns about the mandate.

No. The second you go from simply expressing your view to actively preventing others from doing what they wish to do, you have ceased to be a protestor. Anyone using this is NOT engaging in any "civil disobedience", but in active sabotage, and should be treated as such. You do NOT have any right whatsoever to disrupt anyone else's transactions, regardless of how you feel about the law.

I don't agree with the act or the Act, but how is this any different than a sit-in?

A sit in doesn't disrupt my ability to make commerce with the proprietor of the store. And the people that participate in sit ins have their names and faces out there, and are willing to be arrested. The idiot behind this tool has done no such thing.

Some sit-ins blocked access to public roads and blocked customer access to businesses. But the part about "making yourself subject to arrest" I agree with.

People in the 30's were dead set against Social Security as well. People will typically vote against their own self-interest if enough tribalism and/or fear is used.

What's happened in America - and is happening increasingly in Europe - is that the right wing has convinced a lot of people that they're upper middle class (when they're not) or that they might very well soon be (they won't). Now these people support right-winged favorism of the rich, because they think it will benefit them, either now or very very soon. (It won't)

This doesn't seem like a very Civil form of disobedience. Kinda like saying "I don't like fish and game regulations so I'm going to blockade the national park"

Or "I don't like the TSA so I'll shoot up an airport".

That was a false flag operation. TSA employee gets shot and now the TSA says they need guns to do their job.

I think the TSA is a bloated wasteful organization dedicated to nothing but security theatre that has little to no effect on actual security, but seriously dude if they wanted guns they could just start handing them out. Its not like there is some mandate somewhere that prohibits it and congress doesn't do jack to restrain the TSA. The words "false flag" should pretty much immediately tag someone for a need of extensive medication.

A game of snake requires more coding than this. You can find the script ready to do out there with a couple quick searches, then just substitute the URLs. Not so much a talent as a quick copy paste job.

So by your logic 99% of cases brought before the SCOTUS are not constitutional, since all nine judges must agree for something to be constitutional. Yeah, that would work out well.

By my logic, the ACA is not as obviously constitutional as some here make it out to be. The court was closely divided, and various legal blogs have pointed out that based on the way the opinions were written, it appears that Roberts may have changed his vote.

As a result of the Supreme Court's ruling, the ACA is the law of the land. That doesn't mean there is no room for argument over whether it is in fact constitutional.

Yeah no thats not how it works. It has been declared constitutional by the only authority that can do so, there is no room for argument unless the Supreme court itself makes it in a majority decision. "Wah wah dont like it" isn't grounds for constitutional opposition.

This doesn't seem like a very Civil form of disobedience. Kinda like saying "I don't like fish and game regulations so I'm going to blockade the national park"

Or "I don't like the TSA so I'll shoot up an airport".

Blockading a national park? That sounds like a "sit in". Talk about ignorant.

Shooting up an airport and something like a sit in are worlds apart by any sane standard.

Those people who sat in, actually sat in looking to be thrown in jail. I don't see this guy leaving his name and address and waiting for the police to show up at his house. That would be actually complete a real sit-in. What this guy did is equivalent to pulling his pants down, doing the deuce and walking away. Technically that's a sit-in right?

People in the 30's were dead set against Social Security as well. People will typically vote against their own self-interest if enough tribalism and/or fear is used.

Am I the only person who votes for what I believe is right, and not my own self-interest?It is not in my own self-interest for many of my beliefs to pass, but I agree with them because I believe the cause is right.

For example, it is not in my own self-interest to allow gay marriage, but I vote for it because it is right.

Maybe someone can explain to me then what it means in the U.S. Constitution to "promote the general Welfare" then, because it sure seems to me that having accessible, affordable, continuous health care is very important to the general Welfare of the people.

Oh great constitutional scholar: see Jacobson v. Mass, 1905. The interpretation of the preamble is not viewed as granting any substantive power.

Maybe someone can explain to me then what it means in the U.S. Constitution to "promote the general Welfare" then, because it sure seems to me that having accessible, affordable, continuous health care is very important to the general Welfare of the people.

Oh great constitutional scholar: see Jacobson v. Mass, 1905. The interpretation of the preamble is not viewed as granting any substantive power.

"Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court upheld the authority of states to enforce compulsory vaccination laws. The Court's decision articulated the view that the freedom of the individual must sometimes be subordinated to the common welfare and is subject to the police power of the state."

It appears to be exactly opposite of what your trying to say, thus reinforcing my original point.

So by your logic 99% of cases brought before the SCOTUS are not constitutional, since all nine judges must agree for something to be constitutional. Yeah, that would work out well.

By my logic, the ACA is not as obviously constitutional as some here make it out to be. The court was closely divided, and various legal blogs have pointed out that based on the way the opinions were written, it appears that Roberts may have changed his vote.

As a result of the Supreme Court's ruling, the ACA is the law of the land. That doesn't mean there is no room for argument over whether it is in fact constitutional.

If it's that controversial why isn't anyone filing court cases against it? That's the proper way to challenge the constitutionality of a law, not by speculation on blogs or misconstruing the facts on cable news shows.

This is a particularly stupid DDoS attempt. Healthcare.gov is proxied using Akamai's CDN.

I can also assure you that mostly static pages, like the front page, or the "contact" page are cached in memory by the front-end server before being served to Akamai.

So basically, all this does is increase the cache-hit rate for the webservers, as well as make some network engineer at Akamai laugh.

Seeing as Akamai serves about 30% of the internet, and in memory cache-hits are about the easiest thing a front-end webserver can serve... this really screams "amateur night" from a network security perspective. I'm not going to explain in detail the best ways to do a DDoS (the internet can tell you if you really want to know), but this is really nothing more than a joke.

On the flip-side, I have suspected since the launch of the ACA website that certain groups of people have intentionally been trying to overload the system in order to encourage failure of the website. This does confirm that some people have in fact been trying to follow through on that.

Yeah no thats not how it works. It has been declared constitutional by the only authority that can do so, there is no room for argument unless the Supreme court itself makes it in a majority decision. "Wah wah dont like it" isn't grounds for constitutional opposition.

That's complete and utter bullshit. SCOTUS is not an all-powerful body whose decisions are always right. They can, and do, make mistakes in their rulings. While a SCOTUS ruling has the force of law (and should, because we need one legal standard even if there is disagreement), that doesn't mean that the majority position needs to be treated as sacrosanct. There is nothing wrong with presenting an argument saying "here is why I think that SCOTUS is wrong, and the law is actually unconstitutional".

Also your "wah wah don't like it" remark is a total strawman. At minimum, there are four legal experts in our country who have well-thought out reasoning as to why the law is unconstitutional. Dismissing any objection to the SCOTUS ruling as "wah wah don't like it" is exceptionally poor form.

People in the 30's were dead set against Social Security as well. People will typically vote against their own self-interest if enough tribalism and/or fear is used.

What's happened in America - and is happening increasingly in Europe - is that the right wing has convinced a lot of people that they're upper middle class (when they're not) or that they might very well soon be (they won't). Now these people support right-winged favorism of the rich, because they think it will benefit them, either now or very very soon. (It won't)

So the right is for the rich against the poor, the left is for the poor against the rich ; And that is true worldwide, because the Right and the Left are the same everywhere.

Do you truly think that ?

That is simply big BS.

I am afraid we can't avoid to use our brains when it comes to politics, not only simple rules "me good, him bad".

On the flip-side, I have suspected since the launch of the ACA website that certain groups of people have intentionally been trying to overload the system in order to encourage failure of the website. This does confirm that some people have in fact been trying to follow through on that.

I don't see how this tool provides the confirmation you claim. We have no idea who is behind this tool. As the last paragraph of the post argues, there's no way right now to rule out the possibility it's the work of an Obamacare supporter who wants to discredit critics.

Maybe someone can explain to me then what it means in the U.S. Constitution to "promote the general Welfare" then, because it sure seems to me that having accessible, affordable, continuous health care is very important to the general Welfare of the people.

Oh great constitutional scholar: see Jacobson v. Mass, 1905. The interpretation of the preamble is not viewed as granting any substantive power.

Tom Woods lays it out fairly well, the preamble grants no legal force, it is merely descriptive to the ends of the Constitution. That is how James Madison explained it before it was ratified, and that was how it was sold to the states at the ratifying conventions.

Yeah no thats not how it works. It has been declared constitutional by the only authority that can do so, there is no room for argument unless the Supreme court itself makes it in a majority decision. "Wah wah dont like it" isn't grounds for constitutional opposition.

If your argument is that something is constitutional because a majority of Supreme Court justices said it was, that's certainly your right. But I wonder if you would really stand by that belief if SCOTUS had ruled that, say, warrantless wiretapping of American citizens was legal? Or if Roberts had not changed his vote, would you be agreeing that the ACA was undoubtedly unconstitutional?

One last question. Have you ever read about Korematsu v. United States? By your reasoning, SCOTUS' ruling was constitutional. And if by "constitutional" you mean "SCOTUS said it, so it's constitutional," you'd be right. But was the ruling in keeping with the spirit and intent of the Constitution of the United States? It unequivocally was not.

So by your logic 99% of cases brought before the SCOTUS are not constitutional, since all nine judges must agree for something to be constitutional. Yeah, that would work out well.

By my logic, the ACA is not as obviously constitutional as some here make it out to be. The court was closely divided, and various legal blogs have pointed out that based on the way the opinions were written, it appears that Roberts may have changed his vote.

As a result of the Supreme Court's ruling, the ACA is the law of the land. That doesn't mean there is no room for argument over whether it is in fact constitutional.

The ACA is constitutional because five of the nine Justices said so. Full stop.

Every Supreme Court decision with a majority has to be treated with equal weight; it is the way precedent works. The Supreme Court is the FINAL arbiter of what is or is not constitutional; it is the way the Judicial system works. Once a Supreme Court decision is handed down, arguing about constitutionality is just pissing into the wind.

Now, the ACA is not constitutional for the Commerce Clause reasons that the Obama Administration wanted or promoted, but that's only because CJ Roberts chose to base his decision on the general Congressional Taxation power. Is it obvious that CJ Roberts tried to get the other conservatives on the Court to sign onto his opinion by attempting to neuter the Commerce Clause? Yes. Is it obvious that CJ Roberts weighed the policy ramifications of overturning such a law with deep reaching and hard-fought issues. Sure, I think so at least, and I also think that the Supreme Court has a legitimate legislative role which arises when Congress and the Presidency are at an impasse with each other and/or society; see e.g. Brown v. Board of Education.

Regardless, the end result is the same: the ACA is constitutional, so everyone should move forward from that point.

Yeah no thats not how it works. It has been declared constitutional by the only authority that can do so, there is no room for argument unless the Supreme court itself makes it in a majority decision. "Wah wah dont like it" isn't grounds for constitutional opposition.

If your argument is that something is constitutional because a majority of Supreme Court justices said it was, that's certainly your right. But I wonder if you would really stand by that belief if SCOTUS had ruled that, say, warrantless wiretapping of American citizens was legal? Or if Roberts had not changed his vote, would you be agreeing that the ACA was undoubtedly unconstitutional?

One last question. Have you ever read about Korematsu v. United States? By your reasoning, SCOTUS' ruling was constitutional. And if by "constitutional" you mean "SCOTUS said it, so it's constitutional," you'd be right. But was the ruling in keeping with the spirit and intent of the Constitution of the United States? It unequivocally was not.

Yes, Korematsu, and The Slaughterhouse Cases for that matter, were constitutional if reprehensible decisions. With Korematsu, the Supreme Court can look back on it and say, "The DOJ provided us with false information relating to national security which led to the wrong decision and result" but I don't doubt that there were and are people who firmly believe Korematsu had merit as constitutional if the "facts" presented to the Justices at that time regarding alleged Japanese espionage were true. With The Slaughterhouse Cases, well hell, the Privileges or Immunities clause of the 14th Amendment is still gutted even though that decision is an intentionally contrarian interpretation of the 14th Amendment. But that happened because of what the Supreme Court decided the best social policy was at that point in Reconstruction, and it remains the interpretation of the law.

I am also actually hesitant to compare cases like Korematsu or The Slaughterhouse Cases to the ACA or most any other decision because of the racism upon which those decisions were founded. Those are fundamentally different situations than a law and statute passed through the normal course of legislation. Maybe Lochner and Substantive Due Process is a better comparison point, but I need to get to work.

One can say that they don't believe a law or decision of the Supreme Court is in the spirit of the Constitution, but once the decision is handed down, then the constitutionality is decided, for better or worse, or until a later Court changes their mind.

If this is indeed on the level and was developed by anti-ACA folks, then I feel sorry for them, for they clearly missed or misunderstood the history lesson on civil disobedience, which is the refusal to obey certain laws, regulations, or government orders. If these opponents want to engage in civil disobediance against Obamacare, then don't sign up for health insurance and refuse to pay the penalty. But trying to take down the site to prevent others from willingly engaging in it is not the answer. In other words, you boycott the bus service that forces you to sit in the back -- you don't slash the tires and piss in the engine so that others can't ride it too.

I respectfully disagree. Protest is not only about informing the oppressor but informing the oppressor's consumers. Civil disobedience also includes sit ins (workplaces and diners) e.g. Informing the patrons of a diner of the inequality transgressions.

If you don't disrupt the healthcare transactions now then their is a lost opportunity to inform the public that the mandate is forcing people to purchase a service that is their right to go with out.

For the record I'm in favor of single payer healthcare but that does not mean that we should not address the protestors legitimate concerns about the mandate.

If it's that controversial why isn't anyone filing court cases against it? That's the proper way to challenge the constitutionality of a law, not by speculation on blogs or misconstruing the facts on cable news shows.

From your question, I have to assume that either you don't live in the United States, are you're an uninformed citizen. Many legal challenges to the ACA have been filed. Otherwise, why would the Supreme Court have issued a ruling?

Yeah no thats not how it works. It has been declared constitutional by the only authority that can do so, there is no room for argument unless the Supreme court itself makes it in a majority decision. "Wah wah dont like it" isn't grounds for constitutional opposition.

If your argument is that something is constitutional because a majority of Supreme Court justices said it was, that's certainly your right. But I wonder if you would really stand by that belief if SCOTUS had ruled that, say, warrantless wiretapping of American citizens was legal? Or if Roberts had not changed his vote, would you be agreeing that the ACA was undoubtedly unconstitutional?

One last question. Have you ever read about Korematsu v. United States? By your reasoning, SCOTUS' ruling was constitutional. And if by "constitutional" you mean "SCOTUS said it, so it's constitutional," you'd be right. But was the ruling in keeping with the spirit and intent of the Constitution of the United States? It unequivocally was not.

Again, it doesn't matter what you think -- the SCOTUS is the final arbiter of what is constitutional. It's your right to disagree, and your right to have the ability to not follow the law as well, but you will face consequences if you do, and telling the government that you do not agree with the constitutionality of the law is not going to let you escape that punishment. I highly disagree with Citizens United, but I understand that it must be treated as constitutional until it is declared otherwise.

The ACA is constitutional because five of the nine Justices said so. Full stop.

Every Supreme Court decision with a majority has to be treated with equal weight; it is the way precedent works. The Supreme Court is the FINAL arbiter of what is or is not constitutional; it is the way the Judicial system works. Once a Supreme Court decision is handed down, arguing about constitutionality is just pissing into the wind.

No. The constitutionality of a law has a truth value quite apart from any SCOTUS rulings. If what you said were true, then there would never be any overturning of previous SCOTUS decisions, because it would simply be fact that the law were consitutional (after all, a majority of a previous Court said so).

We absolutely need to have SCOTUS rulings have the force of law, so that we have a single, consistent legal standard. But in no way is a law constitutional merely because SCOTUS said so. It is constitutional if, and only if, it is in accordance with the US constitution. SCOTUS decisions only decide whether the law is in force.

Put it this way: by your logic, if Congress passed a law banning any speech, writings, etc. critical of the government, and SCOTUS upheld it as constitutional (for any reason, even if that reason was as trivial as "We want to not be mocked so fuck off"), it would be constitutional. It is trivial to see that it would not, in fact, be constitutional, and the SCOTUS ruling would be in error. But according to your logic, we would have to pretend that the law was constitutional, even if it clearly was prohibited by the first amendment.

Everyone keeps talking about the Supreme Court like they're some infallible body of perfect government. They're not. They screwed up when they let corporations vote with their money, and they screwed up when they let the government force the purchase of health care.

I still can't believe people are actually alright with the individual mandate. So I'm slapped with a fine for not buying something I don't want? That's alright? That's what's legal in this country now? Maybe that IS constitutional, I don't know- I don't have a law degree. But I do know it sure as hell isn't right.

If it's that controversial why isn't anyone filing court cases against it? That's the proper way to challenge the constitutionality of a law, not by speculation on blogs or misconstruing the facts on cable news shows.

From your question, I have to assume that either you don't live in the United States, are you're an uninformed citizen. Many legal challenges to the ACA have been filed. Otherwise, why would the Supreme Court have issued a ruling?

I understand that there have been many files against the ACA, I was referencing the decision of the SCOTUS -- why isn't that being challenged. Regardless, your point stands.

Everyone keeps talking about the Supreme Court like they're some infallible body of perfect government. They're not. They screwed up when they let corporations vote with their money, and they screwed up when they let the government force the purchase of health care.

I still can't believe people are actually alright with the individual mandate. So I'm slapped with a fine for not buying something I don't want? That's alright? That's what's legal in this country now? Maybe that IS constitutional, I don't know- I don't have a law degree. But I do know it sure as hell isn't right.

Put it this way: by your logic, if Congress passed a law banning any speech, writings, etc. critical of the government, and SCOTUS upheld it as constitutional (for any reason, even if that reason was as trivial as "We want to not be mocked so fuck off"), it would be constitutional. It is trivial to see that it would not, in fact, be constitutional, and the SCOTUS ruling would be in error. But according to your logic, we would have to pretend that the law was constitutional, even if it clearly was prohibited by the first amendment.

thing is, the SCOTUS are the final interpreters of the Constitution and what it means. So if that were to happen, it would indeed be constitutional until another SCOTUS changed it. It's happened before, and it will happen again, but that doesn't mean the original ruling is unconstitutional, it means their interpretation wasn't one that stood the test of time. Dred Scott comes to mind.

We're splitting hairs, though. The final saw is that if the SCOTUS says so, then the law has the full support and faith of the government until otherwise specified. If people want that otherwise sooner, that is what Congress is for.

This trope is constantly raised by those against the ACA, and I'm still wondering what exactly is unconstitutional about the ACA? SCOTUS didn't think it was unconstitutional.

edit: speeling

Yes, because SCOTUS has never issued any fucked up decisions before. *cough cough, Dred Scott*

Interpretation of law is ALWAYS done by people with biases, whether unintentional or not. Yes, SCOTUS *is* the final arbiter on what's Constitutional. Unfortunately, they're all political hack appointees these days, and not a whit of integrity amongst them. At least they're all attorneys right now (which is NOT a requirement, Constitutionally).